Rand Paul’s behavior during contentious interviews with CNBC’s Kelly Evans and NBC’s Savannah Guthrie prompted questions of whether Paul’s interjections were sexist, but the wife of the 2016 contender shot down those accusations during an interview with HuffPost Live on Tuesday.

“I feel like it’s an unfair thing to say that he’s testy just with female reporters,” Kelley said. “To me, no one in my life values the substance of people over the surface more than my husband Rand. … Rand looks for the intellect, the substance, the ideas, the energy that a person brings, not the gender that they are.”

And regarding these specific interviews, Kelley said her husband would have acted the same way with a man.

“He felt like he was not able to express his answer when she was talking, so he was eager to get in there, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it was a man or a woman,” she said. “I’ve read many articles where people say Rand is aloof or abrupt at times, and that is a little bit of his personality, but I wouldn’t describe him as a short fuse because he doesn’t have a tempter. He tends to withdraw a little bit more.”